Pokemon
Pokemon
Decidueye moves, abilities leaked in Pokemon Unite update
Steven Rondina
Pokemon Unite data miners have discovered a fully operational build of Decidueye in the game’s files. The Sun and Moon starter’s release might be coming sooner than most were expecting. The Pokemon Company teased the Pokemon’s release just a few days ago, but Decidueye is already a part of Unite. Though players can’t access it yet, some have unlocked the Pokemon in the mobile version of the game. A YouTuber …
Pokemon
Greedent nerfs highlight new Pokemon Unite balance update
William Davis
Pokemon Unite continues to push balance updates to the game as the playable Pokemon roster expands with the recent release of Greedent and the upcoming release of Decidueye. In this newest balance update, Pokemon Unite made changes to quite a few Pokemon, but one specifically was in focus. It was new melee defender Greedent who got some big changes, most of them being nerfs to its strong kit. Greedent also …
Pokemon
Mew and Jirachi return in Pokemon BDSP, here’s how to get them
Steven Rondina
Popular mythical Pokémon Mew and Jirachi are set to make their return to Pokémon video games in Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl. With the launch of Pokémon BDSP just around the corner, Nintendo is pulling back the curtain on some of the new features that will be available in the games. This includes some new post-game content in Ramanas Park, which will be available to players after they defeat the …
Pokemon
Pokemon Unite hints that Decidueye is joining roster
Olivia Richman
Pokemon Unite fans are confident that Decidueye will be the next Pokemon to join the Pokemon Unite roster. On November 8, the game’s official Twitter account stated that a Pokemon was “flying true like an arrow” into the arena. The hint was accompanied by a picture of arrows outlined in green energy raining down from the sky. While Pokemon didn’t mention which Pokemon was coming to Unite next, fans immediately …
Pokemon
Pokemon GO Festival of Lights arrives with fireworks show
Steven Rondina
Pokemon GO players are being treated to a fireworks display as part of the Festival of Lights event. Many cultures around the world have a “festival of lights” holiday, with Pokemon GO celebrating Diwali. Diwali is a five-day festival celebrating light’s defeat of shadow. Pokemon GO is joining in on the celebration with a 10-day event based around fire and electric-type Pokemon. Alongside the fireworks, new raid bosses have arrived …
Pokemon
Is a Pokemon Emerald port coming to Nintendo Switch?
Steven Rondina
For many, the Gameboy Advance era of Pokemon games was the greatest of them all, with Pokemon Emerald being the best among them. So will it ever be brought back to life on the Nintendo Switch? While Ruby and Sapphire received remakes with Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire, Emerald was never given that treatment. So do fans of the only green Pokemon game to hit western shores have any hope …
Pokemon
How to build and play Greedent in Pokemon Unite
Steven Rondina
Greedent has arrived in Pokemon Unite and, as with every other defender in the game, it’s getting a stint of being wildly overpowered. Following in the footsteps of early top-tier Pokemon Snorlax and the devastatingly strong Crustle, Greedent has incredible bulk, the ability to deal big damage, and can easily score goals even as enemies try to stop them. Some of this is likely to be rolled back over time, …
Pokemon
These are the most expensive cards of Pokemon Celebrations TCG
William Davis
The Pokemon franchise is celebrating its 25th anniversary this year and for the TCG that means a set of cards that will give every player and collector a nostalgic trip. Pokemon Celebrations is the newest Pokemon TCG set which is made to celebrate the 25 years of Pokemon. It’s a small but intense set which has reintroduced some of the most iconic cards from across Pokemon history, starting with the …
Pokemon Unite fans rage over Halloween Festival event rewards
Steven Rondina
Pokemon
Pokemon Unite is having its first seasonal event with the Halloween Festival, but fans are calling foul over the lack of treats being made available. The Halloween Festival offers players the ability to grab a handful of limited-edition cosmetics for their trainer avatars. Unfortunately, it’s unlikely that players will be able to actually obtain all of them. Players only have the ability to get 96 pumpkins, which serve as the …
How to catch and use Sirfetch’d in Pokemon GO
Steven Rondina
Pokemon
Pokemon GO has a number of fun regional variants available for players to add to their lineups, and Sirfetch’d is one of the best. The Galarian Pokemon was made available in Pokemon GO last year and stands out from the pack as a pure fighting type with great move coverage. On top of that is a high CP ceiling that makes Sirfetch’d viable in raids, PVP battling, and fights with …
New Hisuian Zorua and Zoroark coming in Pokemon Legends: Arceus
Steven Rondina
Pokemon
Another new Hisuian Pokemon has been revealed for Pokemon Legends: Arceus. The Pokemon Company went in a very surprising direction with one of its recent trailers for the upcoming open-world Pokemon game. Instead of running through gameplay footage, the latest Pokemon Legends: Arceus trailer was fully cinematic with a unique found-footage style that hearkened to the Blair Witch Project style of the late 1990s and early 2000s. Though it was …
Leak finds new Pokemon Unite Holowear, including epic Crustle
Steven Rondina
Pokemon
Pokemon Unite is set to add a bunch of new Holowear skins over the next month, and a leak is letting fans exactly know what’s coming. Following the announcement of the Halloween Festival, a leak has revealed more Pokemon Unite skins that are set to arrive in November. These skins are follow-ups to established Holowear styles with new ones being discovered alongside the Holowears that were revealed in the Halloween …
Everything you need to know about shadow bans in Pokemon GO
Steven Rondina
Pokemon
While there are an abundance of different third-party tools in existence for Pokemon GO, they run the risk of getting the player shadow banned. Developer Niantic’s primary way of punishing players who violate the terms of service for Pokemon GO is to give them a shadow ban. This has been a steady theme throughout Niantic’s existence, and is a threat in its original GPS-based AR game Ingress as well as …
Big Venusaur, Lucario nerfs coming in Pokemon Unite patch
Steven Rondina
Pokemon
Some big changes are coming in Pokemon Unite’s 1.2.1.8 patch. The update is set to either buff or nerf a number of playable Pokemon and shake up the three main neutral objective Pokemon. Alongside this are several UI and quality of life improvements, as well as some early staging for the upcoming Pokemon Unite Halloween Festival that will add new Pokemon Greedent. In all, four Pokemon are receiving buffs while …
Pokemon Unite developers reveal reasons for roster picks
Olivia Richman
Pokemon
Pokemon fans are often curious about who the next addition to the Pokemon Unite roster will be. And with forgettable Pokemon like Eldegoss and Crustle making the cut alongside fan favorites such as Lucario and Charizard, it could hypothetically be any of them With almost 900 Pokemon being released across 25 years, there are so many to choose from. So how do the developers do it? Pokemon Unite’s team recently …
Greedent coming to Pokemon Unite in Halloween Festival event
Steven Rondina
Pokemon
The next playable Pokemon in Pokemon Unite is Greedent. Halloween has always been big deal in Pokemon GO, and that’s now the case for Pokemon Unite as well. The Halloween Festival will bring a bunch of new content to Pokemon Unite players, with a lot more set to come out alongside the berry-loving Pokemon. The official Pokemon Unite Twitter released a trailer that included footage of Greedent in action. https://twitter.com/PokemonUnite/status/1450085504972558339 …
Twitch Rivals features new Pokemon GO esports event
Steven Rondina
Pokemon
Pokemon GO esports is here in the form of the Twitch Rivals Mobile Showdown tournament. Twitch hosted a unique Pokemon GO competitive event that tasked a group of streamers with catching, raising, and battling Pokemon against one another. Instead of allowing the streamers and content creators to just use their own Pokemon, players utilized fresh accounts pre-loaded with items by Niantic. From there, they were tasked with catching and training …
Galarian Slowking arriving in Pokemon GO for Halloween
Steven Rondina
Pokemon
Galarian Slowking is finally set to arrive in Pokemon GO. Halloween isn’t just going to be about ghost-type Pokemon this year, as the creepy regional version of Slowking added in Pokemon Sword and Shield’s Crown Tundra DLC will be joining the fray as well. The Pokemon’s arrival is part of the Season of Mischief event, but Slowking will be a permanent part of the game moving forward. Galarian Slowking’s addition …
How to get and counter Mawile in Pokemon GO
William Davis
Pokemon
With hundreds of Pokemon available in Pokemon GO, it’s always hard to keep track of the different types, how to counter them, and how to get them. One of the more unusual Pokemon is Mawile, which is a Steel and Fairy-type Pokemon that can often be found in raids or sometimes hatched from eggs. Mawile has some very clear strengths in the game and can be used effectively in the …
How to reach Legend rank in Pokemon GO
Olivia Richman
Pokemon
Trainers are in the middle of Season 9 in Pokemon GO’s PVP Battle League, fighting their way up through the ranks. The goal is to reach Legend, the highest rank in the game’s Battle League. It comes with an abundance of awards, but it does take a lot of effort to get there. Season 9 had all of the usual awards for winning a battle but also announced avatar items …
Pokemon stands as the largest cross-media IP in the world by a comfortable margin, but how did it make such explosive gains?
For a long while, pivoting a video game franchise into a larger brand seemed impossible. Iconic titles like Street Fighter, Mortal Kombat, and Resident Evil received TV and film adaptations, with the most common result being catastrophic failure. That was the norm from the 1990s all the way into the 2020s; and it probably shouldn’t have been.
While Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li and Silent Hill: Revelation were irredeemably bad, Pokemon showed that a video game series can be adapted into many different mediums. Here’s a quick history of the franchise and its future outlook.
Pokemon explodes with Game Boy games, quickly expands
Pokemon first arrived in Japan in 1996 with the release of Pokemon Red and Green; a pair of titles for the Nintendo Game Boy. The two games were largely identical, but each one had a handful of Pokemon that were exclusive to those titles. This encouraged players to collect and trade these monsters with others who purchased the games.
Later on in 1996, the game was reimagined as a trading card game. Then in 1997, an anime adaptation launched in Japan.
Both of those rapid-fire expansions earned strong success domestically. More importantly, it primed Pokemon for an overwhelming global push.
In 1998, the franchise officially crossed over into North America, Europe, and Australia. The games were killer apps for the Game Boy but it wasn’t just a video game. An accompanying anime aired new episodes daily, and the trading card game exploded out of the gate. This made it difficult to ignore Pokemon to the point where characters like Ash Ketchum and Pikachu were universally recognizable. Just like that, the franchise was unstoppable.
Pokemon expands beyond Nintendo consoles, grows even further
For decades, Pokemon video games were among the top-selling games each year they came out. The Pokemon TCG was one of the biggest in the industry. The anime was a constant, without even mentioning its many spin-off movies. Licensing characters for toys and apparel was a golden goose for all involved.
But the franchise was still positioned to grow further.
Almost all of the games were exclusive to Nintendo’s gaming hardware, but mobile gaming was on a sharp rise of its own. The franchise also released a long list of spin-offs, successfully turning the series into everything from a pinball game to a beat ‘em up. The Pokemon Company had dabbled with PC and mobile games previously, but started actively partnering with other studios in the 2010s.
The biggest example of this was Pokemon GO. The Pokemon Company partnered with AR game studio Niantic was an instant hit, being downloaded hundreds of millions of times. It was far from alone, however. Battling-focused gacha game Pokemon Masters, MOBA adaptation Pokemon Unite, and puzzle game Pokemon Cafe launched in the following years.
It wasn’t just licensed mobile games, though. Games like Detective Pikachu and New Pokemon Snap gave players fresh and varied ways to enjoy the familiar franchise.
Modern Pokémon games see mixed response, but sales remain strong
Though Pokémon has many lifelong fans, the mainline releases have long attracted controversy within the fandom. Though the first few generations were generally beloved, opinions on new and modern games releases vary wildly. Starting with the Nintendo Switch, critical response to the games wavered.
Reviews for Pokémon Let’s Go Pikachu and Let’s Go Eevee were lower than previous entries in the series. That pattern held with Pokémon Sword and Shield, which were also met with extreme backlash on social media.
Though each mainline game made every monster from previous generations available up until Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon, this ended with Sword and Shield. Several fan favorites, including Beedrill and the Unovan starters, were made unobtainable in the game. The mega evolution and Z-move battle mechanics were also removed from the games. It’s unclear why or what methodology was used to determine which of the little monsters were left out.
Reviews sank further from there, with Pokémon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl, then Pokémon Scarlet and Violet garnering the lowest review averages for mainline games.
Despite this, the games were still an enormous commercial success. Pokémon Sword, Shield, Scarlet, and Violet ranked among the best-selling games in franchise history. Its publisher may have heeded some of the fan criticism however, as the company opted against releasing a new mainline game or expansion in 2024. This was the first year without a major game release since 2015.
